Monthly Archives: January 2012

Not optimising your website is like printing promotional leaflets and leaving them on your sideboard

The first five

I’m going to do this in two parts to make it a bit easier to swallow.

It doesn’t take long to realise that in the world of Search Engine Optimisation there are a lot of people who know a little about it and few people who know a lot about it but how do you find out what’s what? Here are the first five of ten pointers that will help provide you with the basics when it comes to SEO.

1.SEO should come first not last

If you get your website redesigned but nobody thinks about the SEO until it’s finished, then you’ve done it back to front and it might cost you a lot more than if you did it the right way round. The time to think about SEO is before you redesign your website. SEO is not salt and pepper that you can throw on your website afterwards to liven things up. Although saying that it is possible to do it that way round but it’s often more costly because you might then have to make structural changes to the website that you have already paid to be designed and built. SEO should come first not later.

2.SEO is a long term investment, but it brings long term health to your website and that results in more business for you.

Search Engine Optimisation is not a short term fix. You won’t see results tomorrow but if you do it right your site will get better and better with time, which means your business gets better with time. A reputable and trustworthy SEO Consultant will help you set achievable long term goals and targets for your site but won’t tell you that you will be at the top of page one of Google tomorrow or next week.

3.SEO does not equal shiny Meta tags

It is a bit of a myth that SEO is all about re-doing Meta tags or building back links or even both together. They are just part of the process but there is a long list of areas that need to be assessed and if you have an audit of your site you will be able to see this. Keywords alone don’t cut the mustard, neither do back links on their own. Your website needs to be assessed and dealt with in its entirety to get maximum benefits from SEO. Beware of anyone who tells you that by doing just one thing you can get better ranking. Google is wise to the shortcuts some people take.

4.Not everything you read on the internet is true.

It’s always best to treat what you read on the internet like anything else you hear/see/read about. This applies to some of what you might read about SEO. By all means read it, check it out and try it out before you decide it’s true but do your research and don’t believe the first thing you read without verifying it.

5.SEO is marketing not IT

SEO should be part of your entire business process and as such your IT department and developers will be involved in it but isn’t generally a job for your IT department and is definitely more of a marketing process. It’s about bringing customers to you so it’s a major part of your marketing campaign. Or if it isn’t then it should be.

The next five pointers will follow shortly.

If you require any further information about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or internet marketing please call Sue on 01206 530010 or email sue@thecolchesterseocompany.co.uk